Aylin, 28, found herself in a precarious situation after being flown to the Central African Republic (CAR) by US authorities. After fleeing Turkey due to threats from her family and a religious group, she sought safety in the United States. Despite an immigration judge granting her withholding of removal—acknowledging that her sexuality made it unsafe to return to her homeland—she was denied asylum under a now-defunct policy that restricted migrants who crossed the southern border outside official channels. Aylin, age 28, was sitting in a quiet courtyard in the center of Bangui, the bustling capital of the Central African Republic. She recounted the improbable story that brought her here from her native Turkey – via the United States. Is using a pseudonym, to protect her from reprisals. The CAR capital, agonizing over her limited options, aylin spent several weeks cooped up in an apartment block in Bangui.
Following 18 months in US detention, Aylin was shackled and placed on a flight to the CAR, a country she had never visited. This relocation is part of a broader, expanding US strategy that uses legal loopholes to transfer migrants to third countries rather than their nations of origin. According to the advocacy group Third Country Deportation Watch, the current administration has secured at least 35 such agreements across Africa, Latin America, and other regions. STREAMING NOW: Inside Trump’s secret deportation deals.
The policy has deeply alarmed human rights advocates, who note that nearly half of these partner nations are in Africa, where anti-LGBTQ sentiment is often state-sanctioned or culturally widespread. For individuals like Aylin, the reality is a state of dangerous limbo. In Bangui, she faced a country where hostility toward homosexuality is pervasive, making a public life impossible. She eventually chose to return to Turkey, even as the Turkish government intensifies its crackdown on LGBTQ activists, marked by recent raids and mass arrests aimed at what officials describe as the protection of traditional family values. Immigration advocates say: The US is deporting scores of people who identify as LGBTQ to countries where that puts them at extreme risk, her case represents a dire example of an already distressing policy. For years, the US offered protection to people who convinced immigration judges that returning home could mean persecution, torture, or death. According to “I hope everything has changed for people like me in Turkey,” she, The day before boarding her flight home. “But I’m so scared.
Legal experts argue that the practice of sending vulnerable individuals to nations where their identity is criminalized is unconscionable. Bridget Crawford of the NGO Immigration Equality suggests the volume of such cases has surged, leaving many trapped in foreign environments without support networks or any viable pathway to legal status. “It’s terrible for any refugee to be put in that situation,” Crawford said, noting that for those who are queer or trans, being sent to a country that persecutes them is fundamentally untenable.
Other migrants share similar stories of displacement. Adwoa, a 21-year-old from Ghana, fled violence and ostracization caused by her sexual orientation, only to be deported to Cameroon. Despite her initial US court guarantee that she would not be sent back to Ghana, she was transferred to a nation where same-sex relations carry a prison sentence of up to five years. Adwoa currently remains in a government-run detention facility in Cameroon, fearing for her life.
While US Department of Homeland Security officials maintain that they are enforcing the law as written to ensure border security, a federal appeals court recently challenged the legality of the third-country transfer program. The case is expected to reach the Supreme Court. In the meantime, those caught in the system, including Aylin, express a desperate desire for simple human dignity. “I just hoped to be free. To live my life how I want to live, to take a breath. To have friends. A relationship. A good family,” she said.
